Babar Azam has proved that the decision to make him captain was right: PCB CEO

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The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Wasim Khan believes that the decision to appoint, middle-order batsman, Babar Azam as the captain of limited-overs formats was the right one.

While talking to Cricket Pakistan in an exclusive interview, Khan said that Azam is the Men in Green’s future captain, across all formats, while citing the example of former South Africa skipper, Graeme Smith, who was also asked to shoulder the responsibility of captaincy at a young age.

“Look at Graeme Smith, he was 23 when he was made captain and look at his record. I think before you give someone the captaincy, you have to understand what kind of individual they are. Can they handle the pressure? Is it going to affect their game?” said Khan. “So far Babar has proved that the decision was right. He is our future captain across all three formats.”

“But we have to develop 11 leaders which we haven’t done for a very long time. In the past, we have relied on one or two players to be the leader,” he added. 

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Speaking about Pakistan’s upcoming tour of England, Khan said that it is important to get cricket up and running without compromising the health and safety of players.

“It is important to get cricket back on but we will not put the health of players in any danger whatsoever,” he said. “We have worked closely with the ECB and we are confident about having a safe tour.”

He also highlighted the importance of managing people while answering a question about whether high-profile appointments in Pakistan coaching staff would lead to a clash of egos.

“In order to be successful in cricket, players have to be single-minded which means they will have an opinion but I think understanding and working together as a team is very important,” he said. “We thought long and hard before making these decisions and everyone is clear about their roles and responsibilities.”

“The bottom line is that you have to manage people and if you don’t manage people, then you will have issues,” he added.

He also brushed aside the notion that the PCB was hiring people on extravagant salaries.

“We have moved on in a different direction. The salaries we are paying these people are less than what we were paying previously, so it is a misconception that we are bringing in people on very high salaries,” he said. “We have planned very meticulously, including contingency plans for worst-case scenarios like no Asia Cup and World Cup.”  

The PCB CEO also admitted that he made a mistake about deciding to lay-off staff but quickly rectified it by reversing his decision.

“About three weeks ago, we made a decision about releasing 55 lower-level staff. It was my decision but I quickly realised that I had made the wrong decision because of Covid-19,” he said. “Any good leader will own up to his mistakes and we quickly reversed this decision and there was no harm done.”

“Anybody who says that they don’t make mistakes is lying. If you are in a position like mine, you would know that there is no margin [for error] and everything is scrutinised so I have to get every decision right,” he concluded.